Thread: The Most Amazing Place You've Ever Been

I myself... admit that i live in a dump.. xD but this "dump" is the place you must see... oh yes...

Nothing is perfect they say... but i love it here... but it is getting worse as days pass by.. pollution and moderning the place...cutting down the hills...it would even make you feel itchy after a bath in sea,...

but theres always nice places and beautiful ones left... i hope they wont get tainted too... I would like to hike the penang hill...through this jungle trail...i been in it once.. but did not finish it cause i went to other destination in the woods...

thats a nice place too i went..a damn solitude filled beach...it's damn empty...xD but theres tons of fish i almost caught a damn blowfish.. *whew* it want to jump on me.. *shivers*

Theres no better place than home... though i would love to be somewhere else right now xD

Well, I have a few.

I always wanted to go to Disney, and I did about 10 years ago. Now I'm aiming for a shuttle launch. I would love to see one.

I always loved the vacations we took when I was a kid. I loved going to all the historical places. Philadelphia, Plymouth Rock, Baltimore Harbor (Fort McHenry). Williamsburg, etc. I even loved going to Cape May, and seeing the wreckage of the cement ship. I don't know if it's still there. I still remember Rose Cliff Manor. My mother told me she slipped and fell on the marble staircase when she was pregnant with me.

New York was always fun. I loved seeing the Broadway musicals, and all the sites, I had wanted to see The Phantom of the Opera desperately. I loved the original book, and the movies. My Mom and I went with a group to see it in New York. I was just out of school, and ready for anything. We ate at Tavern on the Green, and then went to see it. It was just as amazing as you would think. I loved it!

Originally Posted by tsurara

Quite a few of us like to travel... even if it's only nearby.

I'm sure quite a few of us have been to places that made our hearts beat just a little bit faster... places that make us feel as though we've gone back in time or stepped into books or movies...

Of all the places you've ever been, which was the most spectacular? The most touching?

What places do you think the rest of us should see at least once in our lifetimes?

The most spectacular place I've ever been would be Assisi, Italy. It was such a quiet, tranquil place. I have never felt so whole in my entire life as when I was there. It had the same roads that were in existence hundreds of years ago. The churches were elegant and the people were charming. Everyone should go there.

The rainforest and rice paddies in Indonesia was a breath taking sight, and thats all i see on the hour long drive to my grandparents grave site...and coming from a major city in the US i found the complete lack of sound, except for wild life a little weird. But the forest, and rice paddies and just the area in general was like, well, like a rain forest...and that is a world away from Los Angeles...

Second Beach just outside of Burgeo Newfoundland. Picture sand as soft as powder, and some pretty awesome waves.

Mesa Verde National Park - Colorado
Mesa Verde National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

I spent 4 days here when I was 8 years old with my mother and father (my last memory of a "nuclear family" really, they divorced a few years later). It was so eerie and unreal. I remember going on a hike at dusk with my father and finding indian handprints all over the sandstone, a coyote hunting mice, and a cactus in flower... it was just so different from everything I'd ever seen up to that point. Standing totally alone in the middle of the ruins made my imagination run wild. I was writing all sorts of stories in my head. I think that was my first real taste of the magic of travel.

Changdeokgung Palace - Seoul, South Korea
Changdeokgung Palace Complex - UNESCO World Heritage Centre

It's really a shame that this UNESCO world heritage site is only accessable through a strictly limited 1 hour tour guided by corny government officials... because walking through here alone would be so much lovelier than with heavyset French diplomats and snap-happy housewives chattering loudly the entire time. I wanted to wander around this place for hours. It felt like being in the anime Juunikokki... The only up-side is that the gardens and outbuildings have been set aside in a seperate site that can be explored (or loitered in) at leisure. The obscenely friendly student groups everywhere only added to the pleasant atmosphere...

Hase Temple - Kamakura, Japan
Hase Kannon Temple (Hasedera)

My favorite temple in Japan... and one of the quietly saddest places I've ever been. Hase is a temple to the goddess/god of mercy, Kanon with multiple smaller sites devoted to other gods and goddesses, huge gardens, mountain paths, and a cozy little teahouse restaurant serving badass mitarashi dango... but the most riveting part of Hase is the portion devoted to Jizo, the protector of dead children. There are over a thousand Jizo statues at Hase... some older than the hills and overgrown with moss, trailing up the mountainside. Some of the paths up the mountain can be hiked and all along you'll run across broken down, half buried Jizo statues. The Jizo statues are often dressed in the clothing of dead children... gifts in exchange for protecting them in the afterlife. The plaque that holds wishes nearby has hundreds written by mothers on behalf of dead, stillborn or aborted children. The most heartrending are addressed to the children themselves. In Japan, abortion is a rather common form of birth control and it's considered "no big deal"... but here, and only here have I noticed a heavy undercurrent of sadness surrounding that attitude. I'm pro-choice... but if there were ever a place to shake the convictions of even the strongest: it's Hase.

Ritsurin Park - Takamatsu, Japan
Ritsurin Park website

Ritsurin Park is fairly local for me now... an hour away by ferry in the city of Takamatsu (where I work half of the time). In the brutal Shikoku summers, the park is a good 5 degrees cooler than everywhere else in the city... just biking by it is a relief. Inside is every bit of nature you could hope for in a place like this: mountainsides, waterfalls, cherry trees, fish, ducks, herons, egrets, skinks, lotus, irises... and every inch is perfectly groomed and dotted with stone lanterns, unique bridges, working teahouses and pagoda outlooks. It's as beautiful a place to loiter as anyone could ever wish for... and the sheer amount of ice cream and shaved ice sellers make it paradise for the hot and city-worn.

I haven't been out of the country once, but I did go horseback riding in the Colorado hills. Colorado is a nice and pretty place, my brother used to live there. I love it because it is an escape from the heat in Texas.